


Timeline

by SegaBarrett



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23692399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Sansa goes back to set one thing, and maybe everything, right.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79
Collections: Gen Freeform Exchange2020





	Timeline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facethestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/facethestrange/gifts).



Sansa had known instantly which direwolf would be hers, and she could have found Lady with her hands tied behind her back and blindfolded.

The wolf was, after all, calm and proper, with a kind of gaze to it – to her – as if surveying everything yet not weighing in, being majestic as opposed to oppressive. 

Arya had wasted no time in complaining about how Lady never did much of anything, how she was a boring and lazy sort of wolf, “kind of like you, Sansa” and Sansa had fired back with some such about how Arya would never be much of anything since she could never get out of the mud long enough to accomplish anything of value.

She had always been a little disappointed in Arya, even though she loved her, of course. But it wasn’t as if she could talk to her, not really, not about those things in her heart that she wanted to describe to someone. There was Jeyne, of course, but they weren’t the same, in a way that would have sounded so self-centered if Sansa had tried to describe it. But it was true.

Or maybe she just wanted to keep those dreams to herself. 

Sansa stroked her hand across Lady’s fur, breathing in the scent. The wolf always seemed to be slightly wet, as if she took grooming as seriously as Sansa herself did. 

“Oh, Lady. You’re the only one who really understands.” Understands what? Someone would have asked, but no, not Lady. She looked at her with big eyes, as if waiting to hear what she would say next, not ignoring her as a silly little girl.

To Lady, everything she was saying was worthwhile. Maybe that was only because of who she was, but that was something, at least. 

She was someone.

***

Sansa was much older now, and she hadn’t thought about Lady in years. In the midst of everything else, she hadn’t allowed herself to remember her. What would she do with more pain, anyway, rather than less? And she wasn’t that girl anymore, anyway.

She didn’t need someone to talk to. All she needed was people who would listen to the directives that she gave, who would stand by her and not question her. 

She had focused only on the most important things, and that was how she didn’t notice the door until she had almost walked through it. It was glowing, a kind of light orange beauty that was coming through and beckoning her. It seemed to tell her that on the other side of it, everything would be warm. 

That was why she didn’t trust it at first, and she lingered in the doorway with a look on her face that was daring it to go back, to retreat. She was the queen in the North; she could command armies, she could tell this thing to leave and let her get back to her own life. Recently, it wasn’t so bad – some days it was even strangely comforting.

She shut her eyes. She didn’t need to walk into any adventures, didn’t need to get drawn into any new battles. 

Didn’t need to.

But there was a lot of unfinished business in her head, as much as she might try to quiet it. She didn’t know why the doorway seemed to be promising her that there was a way to fix some things she had thought would be broken forever.

But she had to trust that it would.

She stepped inside.

***

She noticed Arya first, and bit down on her lip to keep from calling out to her. She looked so young, suddenly, and at first she wondered if maybe some of the innocence had just come back into her sister’s eyes.

Then it hit her. And Sansa was not a dumb girl, of course – even if she didn’t always show it. 

This was a younger Arya, which also meant that it stood to reason that somewhere around here was a younger Sansa, and that it would be most important for Sansa not to see herself. She had enough horrors coming for her in the future without her looking upon – what exactly? She was a queen, now, but a harried one perhaps. Not the woman that girl had dreamed of becoming, certainly.

She knotted her hands together and ducked behind a tree, catching her breath. She took a moment for her mind to tell herself that this couldn’t be happening, but that was a line of argument she had really abandoned around the time her kid brother had someone been able to see all of the past, present and future at the same time. She wondered if he might have something to do with this, but she would have time enough to ask him later.

“Come on, Arya! Stop fighting with Joffrey,” she heard a voice say, and her heart caught in her throat.

Sansa felt her heart freeze, the fear of a young girl who would realize, soon, that things weren’t fair at all, especially when dealing with the Lannisters. “Fair” was not a word in their vocabulary, despite the fact that they would always pay their debts.

They just might pay them unto someone who didn’t even owe them in the first place.

As much as she had tried to thrust it from her mind, and despite the horrible things – more horrible, she could say, maybe, objectively – she could still hear it rattling around in her mind. 

“Lady didn’t do anything!”

She wanted to cry, suddenly. Nothing could be worse than the voice of her younger self yelling in her ears. That first slice at the coat of innocence that had been shielding her.

And then Joffrey…

It had all started here, hadn’t it?

The butcher’s boy. Arya’s friend… 

It had all started here.

Sansa threw aside everything she knew (or everything Old Nan had taught her, to be clear, along with Bran when he wasn’t being extremely ethereal all the time) and took off running. 

She had been a little girl then. Not a perfect one or a particularly bright one, not at the time, but a well-behaved enough average little girl who hadn’t deserved having it all ripped out from under her the way she had.

And something wanted her to be here. Something wanted her to come back here. 

“Hey, what’s this?” Joffrey’s voice echoed out in the woods, bouncing off trees and maybe floating down the river, as he looked her in the eye. “Weren’t you just over there, Sansa? Your sister is such a…”

Sansa had a moment to think, then. 

If she hadn’t gone through all of those things, would she still be Queen in the North, now. She might still be a silly girl who had grown into a silly woman. A simple girl who still assumed that everything was rainbows and lemon tarts. 

If that altered everything, wouldn’t it be a bad idea to try and change anything now? To set this Sansa on a different path? Maybe this was a moment to accept all of herself, here and now.

She could see Theon saying something like that. Would he have saved himself from becoming Reek?

But Theon was gone now. And Sansa had limited time to turn around and make her own decision. She held this other Sansa’s life in her hands, and she had all the knowledge that that girl didn’t have.

It felt like it took years to mull it over, the panic of a moment suspended in time. 

But Joffrey had just run by her, yammering about something or other, the glee of undeserved power in his eyes, and it was no context at all.

Sansa’s hands whipped out before she could double-think it one more second. The river was straight ahead. She almost didn’t feel pushing Joffrey at all, only saw his mouth slip open as he stared at her in shock.

He never would have imagined that pretty, proper Sansa would do anything like that. If he had only known.

She turned her head, ever so slightly, and there was Arya staring at her and, there she was, Sansa too.

The other Sansa. 

Her hands were on her face and she seemed to be trying to scream, but wasn’t quite getting any of the words out. She was flailing.

She hoped she was truly saving her, from all of this.

She was saving Lady, at least. Oh, before she rushed back she would wrap her arms around the direwolf and hold her close. She would be completely and utterly obnoxious, to the point that maybe Lady would nip her on the nose to get her to stop.

Or maybe she wouldn’t, for Lady was such a good girl, a proper Lady just as her name had implied. She would be patient, for that was what was expected. 

Sansa had been patient for a very long time, and it had led her down this very path. 

She looked down to see Joffey disappearing below the water. 

She turned to the other her, the younger her.

“You’re going to want to get as far away as you can. Once Cersei finds out, she will stop at nothing to get you both. To get everyone and anyone.”

She should have felt fear, really. That would have made sense. To feel fear or even sorrow for the fact that, in this moment, she would have to leave her world of dreams behind. To leave her lemon cakes behind. To leave happiness, to leave being a girl and to become a woman. To take her place in the world, again, even here. Maybe there was no way to make it a happy ending.

But there weren’t usually happy endings in Old Nan’s stories, either. 

She walked up to the other Sansa and reached out, pressing her hands to the girl’s cheeks. She felt so warm – she didn’t remember feeling like that.

“But don’t go alone. You stick with Arya this time.”

“This time?” echoed the girl. Sansa didn’t have time to explain.

“And you bring Lady. You keep her close and you keep her safe. She’s a good girl. So don’t you let her out of your sight.”

She leaned in and kissed the girl on your head. 

“You’re a good girl, too.”

And Sansa walked back through the door, unsure of what she would find there.

Somehow, she wasn’t the least bit afraid.


End file.
